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--:-- John Bickley: The growing crisis of child trafficking is gaining more attention in recent days, in part due to buzz around the new film Sound of Freedom, starring Jim Caviezel, that presents the incredible story of special agent Tim Ballard and his work to bring down the horrific industry.
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--:-- John Bickley: I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Monday, July 3rd, and this is an extra edition of Morning Wire.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We had the opportunity to screen Sound of Freedom ahead of the weekend. It's based on the true story of Tim Ballard, a former government agent turned freedom fighter who embarks on a dangerous mission to rescue dozens of children from human trafficking.
--:-- John Bickley: John Rich, who was there at the same screening with me in Nashville, joins us now to discuss. John, thanks so much for coming on.
--:-- John Rich: Of course. We invited you in after hearing your powerful response to the film at the screening.
--:-- John Bickley: First, why do you believe this film is so important?
--:-- John Rich: I think this film had to happen because the pervasiveness of child trafficking around the world and in our own country, I think is something that people know it's out there, but I don't think they really understand how big it is. And that, you know, you walk out of your back door or drive out of your driveway, you assume, yeah, it's going on somewhere, but it's not going on in my neighborhood. And this movie shows you that no, it's going on everywhere all the time.
--:-- John Rich: And what was so unbelievable about the way they built this film was it put you in the room. I mean, you felt it if you're a parent and you watch this movie and trust me, every parent needs to go watch this movie. There is no way to not be completely gripped and just, I mean, you go from sick to your stomach to so angry you want to grab somebody through the screen like Tim Ballard did in real life.
--:-- John Rich: And then at the end, you find yourself, you know, when they get their kids back, just imagining what if that was you and your kid. So I think it's paramount that every parent in America goes and watches this movie to understand this dynamic. It is not an easy thing to think about. It's a really uncomfortable thing to approach, but it's reality. Unfortunately, it is.
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, I can testify to the impact this movie has. It's maybe the most powerful movie I've seen personally.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Some statistics I wanted to present to you. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says that in 2021, they received more than 29 million cyber tip line reports. Those contained around 85 million images, videos, and other content related to suspected child sexual exploitation. That was up around 30% over the previous year.
--:-- John Rich: I mean, a quarter of a million kids in the U.S. right now that were unaccompanied, where are they? Have you seen 250,000 Amber Alerts on your iPhone? No. Are you seeing this as a headline on the news? No. Where are they? They're somewhere, and it's not a good place.
--:-- John Rich: And so, yeah, when you leave the border open, it lets the bad guys on both sides of that border cut deals, make arrangements to get these kids taken from where they should be and put in places where it's literally living hell. I mean, it's like the scenes that we were watching in Sound of Freedom. That is going on all over the country.
--:-- John Bickley: It's a hard thing to grasp, isn't it? I mean, we watched it last night. You wake up and it's still with you because you realize that's going on. And then the question is, well, what are we supposed to do about it?
--:-- John Rich: Well, I don't like the way that answer falls. I don't know how this ever gets fixed other than the American public waking up en masse and finding the organizations out there. Tim Tebow has got one. That's all they do is go after child traffickers. You've got Tim Ballard. You've got other organizations that if they had basically unlimited funding, they would have unlimited reach to be able to get out there and take as many of these people off the streets as possible and get these kids back.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So the filmmakers have made clear that the purpose of this film is to raise awareness on this issue. A recent Convention of States action poll showed that 80% of voters believe that human trafficking is a major problem in the U.S. and that we're not doing enough about it.
--:-- John Rich: First of all, go watch this movie and call all your other mom and dad friends and have them watch the movie. And if you have a kid that's 16 or older, have them also watch this movie. It alerts you to the fact of the tactics that these people use to get your kids. I mean, that was what an eye-opener at the beginning of the movie, how and this is based on a true story, this is factual stuff, how they set up this dad to get their hands on his kids.
--:-- John Rich: Number two, yeah, when you've got 80% of Americans agreeing on anything, 80% of Americans can't agree that they all like to eat ice cream, okay? But 80% of Americans agree that something's got to happen here. This is, we've got to fix this. We've got to knock this out.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, a powerful film highlighting a literally life and death crisis. John, thank you so much for talking with us.
--:-- John Rich: Absolutely. Good to be on.
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--:-- John Bickley: That was John Rich, and this has been an extra edition of Morning Wire.
